


Four Minutes

by ZygomaticBliss



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Idk what i'm doing, Lonely Sherlock, M/M, Polyamory, sad thoughts, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-20 17:12:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1518638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZygomaticBliss/pseuds/ZygomaticBliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock's thoughts during his short flight away from John and Mary.<br/>He was counting the minutes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Minute 0

**Author's Note:**

> Just an idea I had when Sherlock /specifically/ mentioned the fact that he'd only been gone for four minutes. He'd been counting, and he missed his friends. These are his thoughts, minute by minute.  
> Starts at 0 minutes (0-59 seconds) and gets the call in the middle of the fourth, just for clarification.  
> Not ignoring However Improbable, but I find it a bit hard to stick to a single story for long. So here you go.  
> I don't have an actual update schedule for this, but I'll try to get it out as soon as possible.  
> Kudos, subscriptions, comments, and bookmarks are all appreciated, but just raising the hit count makes me happy, so sit back and enjoy my story!

_Minute_ _0_

Sherlock determinedly did _not_ look at the ground as his plane took off. He’d made all of the necessary deductions on land, and the last thing he would ever do was second guess himself. He’d already made that mistake once, just before his departure to dismantle Moriarty’s web, and he’d received nothing but heartache, listening to John’s anger and grief and love. All of that love, right there for the taking, and he had been too damn scared to take it.

Before it was too late.

So Sherlock did not look at the love John and Mary had for him, too little, too late, as his plane toward death began its bitter ascent. Instead, he looked around the cabin of the plane, noting the single bodyguard seated in the back, his sole companion for this leg of his exile. He was there as the flimsy and doubtlessly political insurance for his safe arrival at his intended destination. Because hijacking the plane or developing a sudden interest in skydiving _would_ appear to be the better option to most of those politicians. After all, their purpose in life was to get as high up in the world as possible and survive the trip. His was twofold - to bring down those in the criminal class who thought they were too clever for capture, and to protect John, Mary, and their unborn child with all he was.

Sherlock wondered absently (or as absently as Sherlock was capable of any thought) when that second purpose developed within him; surely it was long before the actual wedding? After all, he had learned to care about Mary sometime before or during those wedding preparations. When, though? Was it when she agreed with him that John needed a case? When she worked with them both to find one? When she proved her intelligence time and time again by catching him - _him!_ \- in his little white lies? Or was it initially, when he first deduced her and saw her honest, passionate love for John? When he saw how happy that love made John? Sherlock shook his head ruefully, begrudging humor and restrained tears brightening his eyes. He doubted there was any singular moment, honestly, that he fell for her. She was tricky, slippery, making him love her so gradually he had nothing left to fight her when he realized it.

John, however, was a different story. John was straightforward and kind and casual with so many surprises hiding in the corners of his smiles, his jumpers, his gunshots, his swears, his bloody _yawns_ , that Sherlock only knew what to expect until John decided he didn’t want him to. Sherlock fell in love with him was like literally falling but only so far at a time, each time like thinking he was at the end of a staircase and falling down the one remaining step he’d forgotten. He’d fallen in love with John when he walked into St. Bart’s that first day, and he hadn’t even known that _this_ was love until the next day, when he realized he’d shot the cabbie for him, and he’d fallen one step farther. He’d fallen in love with him when John met him at the Lucky Cat from his own ingenuity, and when he’d spotted the Chinese numbers therein. He loved him for the speed with which he left Sarah’s even when he was supposed to be mad with him because of the bombing, and he loved him for dealing with Mycroft even when he was  being so dreadfully boring or irritating or threatening. He loved him for helping him solve a case even when he was disappointed in him for not caring enough about the people contained within it, and he loved him for being so damn smug about finding out the cat killed his owner (even when he hadn’t), and he loved him for solving Mycroft’s case with the train and the flash drive. He loved him at the pool, desperately, when he tried to sacrifice himself for Sherlock, and he loved him when he joked about Sherlock “ripping off his clothes in a darkened swimming pool”, and he loved him when he nodded, agreeing to go up in flames with Sherlock. He loved him for Buckingham Palace, and he loved him for cancelling his date that night to take care of him (because, yes, he noticed). He loved him for keeping his middle name a secret for so long, and he loved him for using it to distract Sherlock from his distraction. He loved him for standing up to Irene, and he loved him for lying to him about her. He loved him for finding a hiding place for the cigarettes interesting enough that not even he could find them, and he loved him for being his conductor of light. He loved him when he called him at Baskerville, terrified and hiding from the Hound, and he loved him when he shot the Hound, brave and accurate. He loved him for giving the chief superintendent a bloody nose and for believing in him even when the world started to doubt him. He loved him for his anger toward Mycroft (later recounted to him with much disdain), and he loved him during his Fall. He loved him when he displayed his love at the grave, and he loved him when he displayed his anger at the grave. He loved him when he came back and saw him for the first time in person again, and he loved him when he shaved for him. He loved him for bringing Mary into his life, and he loved him for naming him his best man. He loved him lately for his obvious envy of Janine, and he loved him for his concern for him after Mary shot him. He loved him, especially, for laughing just now, and facing their farewell as John, not as some stranger who smothers him in platitudes for his departure.

He had hoped that, one day, they might have felt comfortable expressing their own love for him. No secrets, no lies, no hidden emotions between them. He never expected sex, although he would have never turned it down, but he never deemed it necessary. John had Mary, and Mary had John, and neither needed him for that. The baby was proof enough of that.

Oh, God, the baby! Sherlock’s eyes watered further, and he shook his head to clear them. How he wished more than anything he could have been that baby’s godfather. He loved that baby before Mary and John even knew they were having one. Now he would never even know what they were naming her. He hoped a bit foolishly that they did, in fact, name her Sherlock (or maybe Sherley). He wished he could have met her, seen her grow up, seen who she would become.

Even as the minute hand on his watch rolled over the next minute, marking the end of his first in exile, he raised his water glass in a toast to the Watson baby, and to the Watsons. The amazing trio who proved the sociopath could love.


	2. Minute 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock considers the wisdom of taking the Magnussen case in retrospect and wonders what the other people in his life are doing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so maybe I can get some good work on this fic done. It's a short chapter, but whatever. It's another chapter.  
> This is not beta'd, not Britpricked, not even really revised much. This is really more like me trying to vomit the fluff bunnies out of my system so I can write actual plot. We'll see.  
> I appreciate kudos, subscriptions, bookmarks, and comments, but just inflating the hit count makes me happy. So sit back and enjoy this fic from this happy author.

_Minute 1_

_“Please, God, let me live.”_

The old phrase echoed back through the recesses of Sherlock’s Mind Palace, and he shuddered even as he smiled dryly. Well, at least he knows how John felt now. What he wouldn’t give to live through this little operation-slash-exile. What he wouldn’t give to live to see another case, another mysteriously appearing cuppa in the morning, another deerstalker. What he wouldn’t give to be Sherlock Holmes, the hero, the consulting detective, the Boffin, again.

What he wouldn’t give to have turned Lady Smallwood away at his doorstep.

Except, should he have? If it were not for the case with Magnussen, he would still be out there, ruling the world through his little game of pressure points and blackmail. If it were not for Magnussen, he would have let Janine fade away into distant corners of his Mind Palace when she’s proven herself a plausible ally. If it were not for him, John would have never found out about Mary.

And, really, wasn’t that the tipping point? Did they really want to know about Mary? Did they really want to know that she was an assassin, a rogue one at that? Was that knowledge really worth his life and freedom? She would’ve never hurt either of them, couldn’t have, but John deserved the truth. Sherlock nodded slightly. John, at least, deserved the truth. Now they move on with their life, their baby, while John seeks to reconcile Mary with AGRA. At least she wasn’t boring about it.

Sherlock snorted softly - when did he become so sentimental? - and the guard shifted slightly, obvious uncomfortable. Sherlock stifled another snort at the thought of a snort forewarning an attack even as his Mind Palace supplied him numerous cases in which it did, with footnotes. Curious, Sherlock poked through them again, surprised and simultaneously unshocked when “Thank God John was there” was included in some form or another in almost all of them. John wouldn’t be able to be there for him anymore.

He wondered where John was now, at that very moment. He hadn’t been gone two minutes, so was he talking with Mycroft, trying to pry details about this mission out of him? Was he sitting back with Mary, watching the sky, waiting for him to find a way out, like he did on the roof of St. Bart’s? Or maybe he was already in the car, heading back home with her, ready to start trying to live without him. Sherlock shook his head at the thought. If his last absence and Mary were proof of anything, it was that John could, in fact, have a life without him. It was Sherlock who could not live without him.

And Mary? Where was she? With John, he could assume, but was she holding John up, just as she had before, or was she just as thrown by his exile as John presumably was? As much as he hoped he had made a difference to her, she was a trained assassin. She’d undoubtedly lost better friends than Sherlock in more tragic events. She would be standing tall today, baby or no baby. And Sherlock was glad. His doctor, his soldier, deserved a woman who would always stand tall.

As for the rest, Sherlock could imagine clearly. Lestrade would be at the bar, failing to get a buzz on in front of a football game as he wonders what he’s going to do without his number one asset. (Sherlock supposed he could be grieving him as well, but Lestrade is not the saint everyone makes him out to be. He’ll be worried about himself, too.) Mrs. Hudson would be hoovering and hovering between putting 221B up for rent, offering it to John and Mary, or keeping it as a shrine to Sherlock. His parents would be putting together a petition to bring him back and calling Mycroft every few minutes to beg him to push it through. Mycroft would be ignoring the buzzing in his pockets and standing an uncomfortable vigil with the Watsons. (Maybe he’d even be eating cake! What? He was off to his death! He’s allowed to think amusing thoughts if he wants. Especially if they’re true…) Molly would be at the morgue, mourning and debating ringing up Tom again. Anderson would be coming up with about five different reasons why he couldn’t have killed Magnussen. Janine would be raising a glass of champagne to him, even as she searches for a new job. And the Woman … probably calling up a reservation to have dinner alone in his memory.

Sherlock smiled again at the thought of them, the people of his life. He hated each and every one of them, and God knew he couldn’t go without them. He’s been shot at, shot through, chased down, chatted up, shouted at, whispered to, and a million things in between. Those people have been there with him and alternating being there for him for years. He raised his water glass a second time to those idiots in his life since he first asked, “Afghanistan or Iraq?” and took a sip even as the second minute passed him by.

 


End file.
